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Monday, August 18, 2014

Offer On The House -Clarified!

We had an offer on the house. But the family could only get a loan that left us quite a bit short of what we need to hit the road.

We were entertaining the option of maybe finding a campground to stay at during the winter in order to save up the rest of what we needed. We scoured the internet and called around to see if any were even open year around in our (cold) area. We found just one locally and it was right in the town the Hubby works at. We researched what it would take to stay in a campground in the winter( since RV's really aren't set up for that). It could be doable with some preparation.

It actually seems like it makes the most sense financially. The Hubby has 3 weeks mandatory shut down over the holidays so we have to worry about that along with trying to pay off some debt and possibly storing our RV during the winter months if we are still around this area. We would also save on gas money for our vehicle since it would be closer to work and also to our church and grocery shopping.

Staying at the campground would allow us to put back around $1800 a month to help with the shut down, throw at some debt and we also wouldn't have to worry about added RV storage fees ontop of house payments. Plus we could be saving up for us to actually leave and have more of an official date to head out
( by March 2015).

But we just weren't sure. So we do what we always do when we need guidance-PRAY. We prayed that God would give us an unusual amount of wisdom to decipher what we should do about the house and make it crystal clear. We said how we didn't want to make our own miracles and wanted to follow God's lead.

I went upstairs after our prayer to take a nap but decided to get in a chapter of "Draw the Circle-The 40 Day Prayer Challenge" by Mark Batterson( I highly recommend it!). This is what I read:

"Don't let fear dictate your decisions. Letting your budget determine your vision is backward. Faith is letting your vision determine your budget. And if your vision is God-given, it will most definitely be beyond your ability and beyond your resources. Why? Because then God will get all of the glory! And I promise you this: the God who gives the vision is the same God who makes provision."
Nothing is a better example of that than our 23,000 adoption of which we had 0 in savings for yet somehow managed to not go in debt 1 cent when we brought Princess home! God showed up in amazing ways during that process and he for sure gets all the glory.
The author, Mark, then talks about this crazy prayer he felt led by the Holy Spirit to pray for: 2 million dollars. It would go to pay off a mortgage they had for the church.

"At one point, I got a little impatient and tried to manufacturer my own miracle with a start up business. Unfortunately, what I thought was a $2 million idea turned into a $15,000 personal loss."
( I updated this blog post because there was some confusion as to whether we were accepting the offer or not. So I amended this post to clarify. Sorry for any confusion!)

He goes on to say how him and some others still kept praying for this 2 million dollars. And one day it happened in the form of an out of the blue phone call of someone saying they wanted to donate not 2 million, but 3 million dollars to the church. Crazy, right?

I ran downstairs to tell the Hubby that we had gotten our answer. We are NOT accepting the offer.

One other thing that hit me when reading from the book was that staying in the campground made sense financially. It was actually the safer road. I have learned through my life that nothing that is God inspired and breathed ever makes sense. It may 'feel' right ( Holy Spirit led) but it never makes sense in human terms( in our brains).

Sticking it out here and playing the old waiting game is way more risky and takes a lot more faith and trust.

So that's what we are going to do. Pray for an offer that is closer to our asking price.

We did have a promising showing from another family on Thursday. They have to move to the area by October(e.g. serious buyers) and seemed to really like our home. But I have no idea what other places they are looking at and what exactly their wish list is for a house. So we are are just praying that the Holy Spirit moves them to choose our house and that they offer close to full asking price. Did I mention the husband of this family is a pastor? Who better to help fulfill this God given dream of ours than a man of God, right? lol It would also be ideal because they are in a parsonage now so they wouldn't need to sell their house.

We really don't want to be here all winter again( though we would come back for a little while to have the baby and for the holidays anyhow) but it's not really our decision to make.

I am reminded of a song:

"Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord."

We also had someone wanting to rent/lease our house from now till June of next summer and then buy it then. That was also very tempting but we have no assurance that they will even be able to get a loan then and for the amount that is needed. That would also take a lot of faith but after praying about it, it seems more foolish than trusting. There is such a fine line and only the Holy Spirit can help determine the difference.